Hello, friends, this is a Batwoman 213 recap called “I’ll Give You a Clue” — and let me give you a clue: it has one of the best superhero show team-ups ever.

The writers really woke up and chose rage love with this episode y’all, and it was a rollercoaster of fun and puzzles and team-ups and feelings the entire time. So buckle up, friends, we’ve got a puzzle to solve!

Previously on Batwoman, Ryan and Alice teamed up against False Face, we sort of met New Face Kate, Sophie used the Batsignal as her own personal Batwoman pager, Snakebite Jake continued to do Snakebite I guess, and Ryan said goodbye to Angelique who headed into witness protection.

It’s five years ago, and we’re at Blackgate Penitentiary with rookie Sophie Moore, hair a bit shorter and attitude as biting as ever. She’s checking in on the first person she’s put behind bars, a man who goes by the name of Cluemaster and who refuses to believe that Sophie could have solved his puzzle on her own. She wishes him luck and walks away, never to see him again! LOL, sure.

Back in the present day, Batwoman is fighting more members of False Face (okay real talk, how big is this gang? I feel like their numbers are multiplying??) and I need to give another shout out to the fight choreographer for this show because WHEW CHILE, this fight was beautiful! Ryan has the last guy right where she wants him when the useless Crows interfere yet again. Luke tries to convince Ryan, over comms, to let it go, but ya girl isn’t about to let this slide. Luke responds with a “here we go” that can only be delivered by someone who’s tried to talk Ryan out of reading law enforcement for actual filth many a time, and read them she does. Homegirl lays out exactly how she was about to use a tracker to follow this fool to Black Mask, thus taking down Gotham’s current most wanted, but the Crows are so shite at their jobs that they not only screwed up her plan, but they also gave her enough time to strategize her escape. And for only the first time in the episode, she ziplines away.

“If this dude doesn’t hop off me, I swear to Rao…”

Meanwhile, Snakebite Jake is doing Snakebite at a park and hallucinates young Kate and Beth on the swings.

At Sionis mansion, Black Mask is torturing Alice and demanding to know Batwoman’s identity (get in line, bruh). I couldn’t help but notice CirceKate’s knife twirling mirroring Alice’s butterfly knife twirl that we’ve come to know and love. Have we ever seen actual Kate flip a knife around like that? I truly cannot remember. Am I going to ignore that fact and chalk it up to knife spinning being in the Kane girls’ DNA for the sake of my headcanon? Yup. Anyway, Alice denies being friends with Batwoman and becomes the embodiment of that TikTok trend where people share what they’d talk about nonstop if they were ever kidnapped or tortured. Black Mask attaches Alice’s finger to a terrible and medieval looking torture device in the hopes that it’ll spur her to comply.

“I know COVID has changed manicure procedures, but surely there’s a better way.” 

Ryan arrives home after a seemingly dramatic shift at The Hold Up, ready to go in on some vegan wings with Mary, but she stops in her tracks because an uninvited Crow has flown into their loft. It’s the way Ryan asks “Why is Crowphie here?” and the way Sophie closes the scene with “there’s a lot we don’t know about each other yet, Ryan”, for me y’all. I promised myself I wouldn’t spend this entire recap ALL CAPS yelling about pretty much everything that happens from this point forward, but CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS TRIO FOR A MINUTE PLEASE?!

The way Ryan and Sophie banter with each other, and with Mary thrown in as referee, was inspired. These actresses have the kind of chemistry with each other that, I imagine, showrunners dream of. It’s also such a testament to the writers that Sophie coming out as a lesbian to Ryan was not the most interesting part of the episode. It did make me scream though, I won’t even lie to you. Anyway, Sophie and Mary are having themselves a girls night with very expensive tequila courtesy of Sophie’s Crow co-workers celebrating her fifth anniversary with the organization. Ryan eventually decides to join them, and then the fun begins.

“Raise your hand if you’ve used alcohol as a coping mechanism rather than dealing with your trauma!”

My new favorite trio (I reserve the right for this designation to change depending on which characters are thrown together, thank you very much) settles in for a friendly game of Never Have I Ever during which we learn that Ryan accidentally sexted Mary, Mary had sex on an airplane, and all three have been saved by one of the Batwomen at least once. At first, Sophie is confused about how Ryan could save herself, but Ryan clarifies that it was the OG Batwoman. Sophie starts to do that thing where she’s pretty much begging Ryan to come out as Batwoman by dropping hints about knowing her identity and throwing hella shade left and right.

When your friends can’t help but be impressed by your sky high escapades.

As Mary refills their shots, she finds a venomous caterpillar in one of their glasses, and Ryan discovers a note on the tequila packaging. The note is from Cluemaster, and Sophie is the target.

“If there was a problem, yo, I’ll solve it. Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it”

Sophie tells the gals that Arthur Brown (aka Cluemaster) was the host of a Jeopardy knock-off called Quiz Bowl who got fired and went on a murder spree complete with clues for law enforcement to decipher in order to figure out his next victim. Ryan learns that Cluemaster managed to escape Blackgate that very day to get revenge on Sophie, who he believes is the only person to have cracked his puzzle. The group reads the note again carefully because Cluemaster doesn’t use any word accidentally, and they realize “Hot Shot” is the clue. Ryan lights a flame against the bottle, a move that both Mary and I agree is VERY sexy, which reveals a symbol that Sophie immediately recognizes.

Hot.

Meanwhile, Alice speeds up the fingernail torture process, but I’ll never actually know what happened because I had to close my eyes. Can’t do finger- or toenail horror, friends, sorry ‘bout it. She knocks out CirceKate and momentarily escapes to call none other than Snakebite Jake for help. Later in the episode, Mary laments that her father has lost pretty much everything, and it’s clear that Alice is in a very similar boat. Anyone who could have possibly helped her out of this situation is either dead (Mouse) or out of commission (Ocean), and Alice probably hoped that despite the many times he’s tried to kill her, her father might care enough about his daughter to save her. Unfortunately for Alice, Jake is hopped up on that sweet sweet snake juice and distractedly tells her that she has the wrong number. The desperation in Alice’s voice as she pleads, “Daddy”, broke my heart into one billion butterfly knife shaped pieces.

“Papa can you hear me?”

Ryan, Sophie, and Mary arrive at the shooting range that the symbol on the tequila bottle led them to, and they climb over the fence onto the property. Well, Sophie gives Mary a boost over the fence and refuses to give Ryan one either because she’s testing Ryan’s Batwoman skills or because she assumes because Ryan’s a felon, climbing fences comes easily to her. Either way, it results in some A+ flirting. I mean, bickering. Once inside, Sophie reveals that she wasn’t actually the one who solved Cluemaster’s puzzle; a girl called the Crows tip line with the answer. Sophie kept the informant’s identity a secret because, as she reminds Ryan, she can be trusted. After searching the area, Mary finds an antihistamine that will counteract the poison. As she lifts the jar, flood lights illuminate a woman locked in box several hundred feet away. It’s Stephanie Brown, Cluemaster’s daughter.

*sings* “It’s a girl in a box!”

HamilWildMoore to the rescue!

Shocking literally no one, after two lines of dialogue, I’m in love with Stephanie. Do we think the Batwoman writers are like “okay, so I know there is an abundance of attractive women on this show but WHAT IF we just keep adding new ones every week to watch the viewers’ FREAK OUT?” That’s definitely happening, yeah? Ryan tells Stephanie to relax and Steph hits her back with a “My dad poisoned me and locked me in a box, you relax!” and when I tell you I got a full belly laugh out of that one, whew! They find another puzzle that, once solved, will free Stephanie from her see-through prison. Mary asks Ryan and Sophie to release each other’s necks (and step on mine. Jk, not that part.) for two seconds so they can figure out the puzzle and wouldn’t you know it, they solve it after a very adorable squabble over the difference between a bobcat and a puma.

Listen, I hate guns. Always have, always will. But for some inexplicable reason, watching a fictional lady wield fictional guns is SO HOT. Despite Ryan’s insistence that she’s just as good a shot, Sophie immediately takes charge, nails all four targets, and turns to Ryan before asking “any questions?” And then, I passed away. Look show, if you don’t want me to ship Wildmoore, please tell Javicia and Meagan to have less chemistry while they bicker. (I’m kidding, please don’t do that.) Once Ryan picks her jaw up off the floor, Mary gets the antidote to Stephanie who reveals a bunch of Blindspot-esque numbers and letters written all over her body; Cluemaster isn’t done toying with them yet.

Sorry, I passed out. What’s happening?

CirceKate has Alice tied back up and describes gauging the eyes out of some CEO’s head while she was in Arkham, and Alice realizes that she remembers this happening; she puts two and two together and identifies her captor as Circe Sionis, even though she thought Circe was trampled in the Arkham riot.

HamilWildMoore bring Stephanie back to the loft to examine the code on her body, and Ryan realizes that Stephanie is the one Sophie’s been protecting. She’s always been good at decoding his puzzles, but it’ll take her forever to decipher the code on her body by herself. Naturally, they bring in Luke to help! One of my favorite things to do is aggressively ship and support my friends’ relationships or situationships or flirtationships or whatever ships they may find themselves in, and watching Mary and Ryan excitedly cheer on Luke and Stephanie while they flirted was like looking in a dang mirror. THE SMILE ON RYAN’S FACE when she said “I think this is how nerds flirt” though! Anyway, the nerds figure out that the code on Stephanie’s body was a substitution cypher, so while they try to decode it, HamilWildMoore head to the old Quiz Bowl set to look for more clues.

Me @ my friends always

When they get to the set, Ryan and Mary step up to a podium that turns out to be a weight-sensitive pressure plate that’ll explode the moment they step off. All of a sudden, a video recording of Cluemaster starts playing and tells who he assumes is Sophie, that they can earn more time in the game by answering his questions correctly.

“I was hoping for Levar Burton!”

Meanwhile, Stephanie and Luke bond over cyphers and MIT. Stephanie shares that she earned her dad’s affection through puzzles, but stops her story short once she realizes Quiz Bowl was a decoy and figures out where Cluemaster actually is. I’m not entirely familiar with hetero mating rituals, but I’m pretty sure knocking your crush unconscious isn’t the way to their heart. /shrug.

Back at Quiz Bowl, the Terrific Trio is KILLING IT at Gotham villain trivia. Ryan and Mary have an adorable handshake and everything! They get every question right thanks to Ryan, including the last question about Batwoman 2.0’s very first takedown. Ryan gets that one correct before any of the other options show up and Sophie gives her some serious side-eye before suggesting they call Batwoman herself for help escaping. Ryan is aghast that Sophie uses the Batsignal any time she wants an audience with the Bat, and manages to dissuade her away from that option. Mary and Ryan suggest, in unison, that they call Luke for help instead. Too bad, homeboy is still passed out. Listen, there is nothing I could type in this recap that will adequately capture the sheer brilliance of these three women together so I implore you, please go watch this scene repeatedly like I did.

I LOVE THEM

At Sionis mansion, Black Mask demands that Alice give him Batwoman’s name otherwise he’ll shoot her. Alice then reveals that she knows he’s Roman Sionis and offers to sew Circe a brand new face, you know, in case you forgot that Alice sews LITERAL HUMAN FACES.

Meanwhile, Mary tries to get Ryan to tell Sophie that she’s Batwoman before Sophie comes back in to let them know Luke isn’t answering. They review the latest clue again and Sophie comes to the conclusion that the only way for her is death. She and Ryan flirt, I mean bicker, yet again, with Sophie practically begging Ryan to trust her. Sophie finally reveals that she knows Ryan is Batwoman, and Ryan tries to play it off before eventually relenting and giving Sophie instructions to get into the Batcave. I know I’ve given Sophie a hard time here and there, what with her working for a white supremacist organization and all, but over the last few episodes, she’s really started to prove that she wants to be on the right side of history. I do believe that her heart is in the right place, and I can only hope that becoming an official member of the Bat Team will be the first step in her taking down the Crows.

“They’re really just gonna…act like I didn’t just solve the Batwoman puzzle? Right in front of my…okay, then.”

While Sophie is gone, Mary and Ryan have some Real Talk. You see, Ryan assumes that Sophie hanging out with Mary was just part of an elaborate ruse to get Mary to spill the tea on Batwoman. But Mary isn’t having it. For one, Mary is a damn good time so of course Sophie would want to hang out with her, but perhaps more importantly, Mary accuses Ryan of being unable to see through her own Crow hatred that Sophie is actually a good person. This right here is why I need the show to follow through on Sophie taking down the Crows from within. I understand where Mary is coming from, but she’s getting dangerously close to “not all Crows”, and while that is true, an organization like the Crows thrives on the assumption that the “good ones” will stay quiet and in their place. The burden should not rest solely on Sophie’s shoulders, but if she manages to throw the proverbial first brick at the glass house the Crows built, then maybe there’s a chance to break down the systemic issues facing Gotham.

And speaking of Sophie, our girl is in the Batcave, looking around in awe and y’all, the camera lingered for an extra second on the Batsuit and the way my heart leapt when I thought she might try on the suit. COULD YOU IMAGINE?!

Meanwhile, Stephanie is in front of her childhood home when Cluemaster shows up and gives his villain speech. Stephanie tells him that she’s actually the one who put him in prison, so naturally, he gasses her and locks them both in his car. Back at the loft, Luke comes to, deciphers Stephanie’s notes, and gets to the house just in time to save her and quip that just because he didn’t go to MIT doesn’t mean he didn’t get in. TELL HER, LUKE.

Back at Quiz Bowl, Ryan tells Mary that she was right about her not trusting Crowphie. Turns out, she was jealous about the two of them hanging out without her. Mary reveals that Sophie thinks Jacob is on Snakebite, so she came over to make sure Mary was doing okay. Sophie gets back with the Bat grappling hook right on time, Ryan grabs Mary and they all fly out of there like Charlie’s Angels, right as the explosion goes off. AND THEN RYAN AND SOPHIE SHAKE HANDS.

“Can we go back to Coryana? This dude is wild’n”

Ahem. Back to the heteros that somehow I care deeply about. While Stephanie laments over the loss of her relationship with her father, Luke reminds her that she doesn’t owe him anything and that in time, she’ll find her people. Blood doesn’t necessarily make a family, and Luke has been lucky enough to find people of his own. Stephanie kisses Luke and he and I have the exact same grins on our faces.

At the clinic, Mary is leaving a voicemail for Snakebite Jake when one of her assistants wheels him in. He starts coding and foaming at the mouth, and Mary’s cries might be the thing that forces me to care about Bad Dad, dammit.

Meanwhile, The Hold Up is nearly empty save for two beautiful Black women on a date. Yeah, it’s a date. I said what I said. Sophie explains to Ryan how she figured out Batwoman’s identity, and it could have been my Wildmoore goggles, but Ryan looks slightly impressed. She isn’t completely on Sophie’s side yet because she knows up until a few days ago, Soph thought Ryan was an ex-con with no future. Sophie actually acknowledges she was wrong about that and apologizes to Ryan. RYAN TELLS SOPHIE TO PROVE THAT SHE’S SORRY, and Sophie explains that she already has. Y’all, these two are going to be the death of me, I SWEAR.

“So this is loooooveee…mmmhmmmmhmmmm”

We end again this week with Alice, but this time she’s sewing Circe’s mask despite knowing very well that the woman sitting in front of her is NOT Circe Sionis. It’s not until she holds the mask up to this woman’s blue eyes that she realizes the person sitting in front of her is her sister, Kate.

“Look with your special eyes.”

This episode was SO MUCH FUN to watch so I can’t imagine how much fun it was to film! What were some of your favorite moments?

It looks like next week is going to be a heavy BLM-themed episode, but I have a good feeling these writers are going to treat it with the utmost care. Until next week, friends!

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